


When the Night Takes A Deep Breath

by hauntedjaeger (saellys)



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Canon Character of Color, Canon Compliant, Canon Disabled Character, Gen, Jaeger Name Involving Ethnic Slur, Long-Distance Relationship, Missing Scene, Offscreen Marriage, Spitefic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-15
Updated: 2014-05-15
Packaged: 2018-01-24 21:28:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1617674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saellys/pseuds/hauntedjaeger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The tablet wakes when he prompts it. "Call Vanessa." She needs to hear about all this--she'll know what to say, know how to find the angle he can't to make it somehow less appalling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When the Night Takes A Deep Breath

**Author's Note:**

> I just realized, while thinking about the fact that Vanessa Gottlieb was never mentioned in the film, that quite a few of PacRim's deleted scenes (the Hansens, Stacker in his quarters, Tendo and his guitar) fit after the G. Danger Drift test and before the Double Event, during a few precious hours of downtime and regrouping before the apocalypse. This fic came to me all at once. I'd like to thank the latest fandom shitstorm over Vanessa Gottlieb for fueling my rage and spite. 
> 
> The title is from U2's "In A Little While".

This has been a particularly trying morning, and once his whirlwind-in-a-thornbush colleague is mostly cleaned up and out the door, Hermann is left with... not much to do. Not much he feels like doing, at any rate, with the latest models finished and his numbers long since in the Marshal's hands. He eyes the boards for a moment, but the libretto they bear is as complete as he can make it before the next event gives him more data, and the application of his predictions will be out of his hands. He powers down his terminal and locks up the lab for the day.

It's not yet noon, but he can feel the pressure from a storm outside, and when he passes a rare window it's black as night. Seems to suit everyone's mood, what with the Drift test mishap, followed by a pair of Rangers attempting to beat each other to a pulp. At this rate, the kaiju may not have a chance to kill them all. The Shatterdome will collapse in on itself before then.

Hermann takes a shortcut through the hangar, a temporary cacophony. Techs manually haul Gipsy Danger back into her bay and replace Striker's cleat hydraulics. Soft beneath all that is the sound of Tendo's guitar.

Out the other side in the relative quiet of the corridor, he's only a hundred meters from his quarters, and not a moment too soon. His hip aches. He wrests the door open, uses all his weight to get it closed again, takes a deep breath, and lets it all out slowly as he sits at the desk.

The tablet wakes when he prompts it. "Call Vanessa." She needs to hear about all this--she'll know what to say, know how to find the angle he can't to make it somehow less appalling. As he reaches for his pills, Hermann glances at his watch, and subtracts eight hours. Damn. "End call," he sighs. 

When he's swallowed the day's allotment and his hands are free, he texts her. She'll see it in the morning, and that will have to do. By then he'll be less wound up, or else they'll have moved on to the next crisis. In fact, if it's not going to matter in four hours, he might as well skip the palaver and get to what the point of his call would have been in the first place. _I love you_ , he types. 

Two minutes later he's changing his shirt, which got some of Doctor Geiszler's blood on it, when his tablet pings.  _What's going on?_

Bloody hell. Is everything bound and determined to backfire horrifyingly today? The whole point was to avoid waking her, and certainly not to worry her, and Hermann spends a moment regretting the fact that a simple sentiment can be construed as a sign of the end times. Everyone's on a hair trigger, not just the Hong Kong Shatterdome. 

 _Everything is fine_. For given quantities of fine.  _Sorry to wake you_. 

He waits while her icon shows a typing indicator. After a long pause (of indecision? Is she going to press him?), Vanessa replies, _I love you too. And I don't ever mind reading that, not even in the middle of the goddamn night._  He can picture her smile perfectly--in fact he doesn't need to because there's a framed photo on the desk, setting sun behind her, bright bright light caught in her hair, eyes sparkling, the corners of her mouth curled up wry and warm. He doesn't need to picture it, but he still does, because in his mind's eye her smile is alive and vibrant and she's opening her mouth to say something, something only she would think to say.  _Have a good rest of the day._

And Hermann relaxes a little, because he thinks he might. She has a way of turning things around like that--even when she isn't actually present. If she tells him to, maybe he can.

Two hours later, the Breach opens and two kaiju emerge.


End file.
